Minerals Commission, UNDP meet stakeholders on mining vision

The Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Nii Osah Mills, says Ghana’s lack of value addition in its minerals produce is a clear case of a gap that needs to be addressed through stakeholder engagement programmes.

In a speech read on his behalf by Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, Deputy Minister for Mines at a stakeholder engagement at Tarkwa on Ghana’s Country Mining Vision (CMV), he mentioned that Ghana like most Africa countries has historically not benefitted enough to make the desired impact from exploitation of its mineral resources.

“Throughout Africa basic economic challenges still persist, while in well-endowed mineral resource rich countries in the developed world the mineral resources have been used as a primary commodity to catalyse development for the economy’s other sectors such as manufacturing industries and service-based industries,” he said.

The Minerals Commission in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has started a series of engagement programme on Ghana’s Country Mining Vision (CMV) to help align it with broad national development goals, with the African Mining Vision (AMV) as its basis. 

Aside from the meeting in Tarkwa, other engagements have been held with stakeholders in Sunyani and Bolgatanga. The series of workshops bring together, a wide range of stakeholders, including senior policy officials, mining experts, civil society leaders, researchers, legislature, academia, traditional authorities, local government officials and community opinion leaders.

The outcome of the awareness creation and engagement programme is expected to serve as an input to developing practical broad-based recommendations for developing Ghana’s CMV, so as to ensure sustainable development of the minerals industry and serve as a catalyst to develop other relevant sectors of the economy.